The Main Event
- July 25, 2011 – Phillies hit four home runs in a 7-2 win over San Francisco; it’s the 40th time Ryan Howard and Chase Utley both go deep in the same game, breaking the record held by Mike Schmidt and Greg Luzinski.
- July 25, 2007 – In his MLB debut, Washington’s John Lannan hits Chase Utley with a pitch (breaking his hand), then hits Ryan Howard — the next batter — and gets ejected.
For a decade, the right side of the Phillies infield belonged to two men who arrived in Philadelphia within a year of each other and left as the most productive homegrown duo the franchise had fielded since Mike Schmidt and Greg Luzinski. Chase Utley debuted in 2003 and became the everyday second baseman in 2005, the same year Ryan Howard took over at first base and won National League Rookie of the Year. From 2005 through Utley’s trade to the Dodgers in August 2015, the two anchored the middle of the Phillies’ lineup and the right side of their infield for ten full seasons, and along the way they built one of the most prolific home-run partnerships in franchise history.
Breaking a 1970s Record
By July 2011, Howard and Utley had homered in the same game 40 times, breaking the Phillies’ previous mark of 35 shared home-run games held by Schmidt and Luzinski, the sluggers who had powered Philadelphia’s 1980 World Series champions. Howard and Utley kept adding to that total for the rest of their time as teammates, and by the time Utley left for Los Angeles they had done it 51 times as Phillies. The number kept climbing even after the trade: in August 2016, when Utley returned to Citizens Bank Park in a Dodgers uniform and hit a pair of home runs, including a grand slam, Howard added one of his own in the same game — the 52nd time in their careers the two had gone deep in the same contest, and the only one in which they did it for different teams.
That total, remarkable as it is for a Phillies pairing, still falls short of baseball’s all-time leaders. According to Elias Sports Bureau data, the record belongs to Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron of the Braves, who homered in the same game 76 times, followed by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig at 75. Duke Snider and Gil Hodges, Willie Mays and Willie McCovey, and Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra all sit in that rarefied territory as well. Howard and Utley didn’t crack that uppermost tier, but landing in the neighborhood of 50-plus shared homers puts them alongside some of the most feared middle-of-the-order pairings in the sport’s history — remarkable company for two players developed entirely by the same franchise.
The Day They Both Got Hit
Not every shared moment between Howard and Utley involved a home run. On July 26, 2007, the two were both on the wrong end of one of the stranger debuts in major-league history. Washington Nationals rookie John Lannan, making his first career start, hit Utley with a 3-2 fastball in the fifth inning, breaking his hand. Utley was in the middle of an MVP-caliber season at the time — he was hitting .336, leading the National League in doubles, and ranked among the league leaders in runs and total bases — and the injury cost him more than a month. Home-plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt didn’t wait to see what happened next: after Lannan’s very next pitch plunked Howard, the rookie was ejected on the spot, becoming just the fifth pitcher in major-league history — and the first since Aaron Boone in 1997 — to be tossed from his own big-league debut. It was an odd bit of shared history for the two Phillies sluggers, a reminder that even a partnership defined by power could be interrupted in an instant.
A Decade of Shared Milestones
The home run record and the Lannan game are only pieces of a much larger résumé the two built together. Howard and Utley were both everyday players on the 2008 World Series championship team and the 2009 National League pennant winner. They helped drive five consecutive NL East titles from 2007 through 2011 — the longest divisional run in franchise history. Individually, Howard’s 2006 season stands as one of the greatest in Phillies history: 58 home runs, still the single-season franchise record, along with 149 RBI and the NL MVP award, following his 2005 Rookie of the Year honors. Utley made six All-Star teams, won four Silver Slugger awards, and delivered one of the great individual performances in World Series history in 2009, tying Reggie Jackson‘s record of five home runs in a single Fall Classic. Today, Howard ranks second in franchise history in home runs, while Utley sits sixth — meaning two of the six most prolific power hitters in Phillies history spent a decade as double-play partners on the same infield. Both were inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame in November 2024.
Philadelphia Baseball Events for July 26
- July 26, 1911 – Phillies Catcher/manager Red Dooin breaks his leg in a home plate collision in St. Louis — but holds onto the ball for the out. Dooin would miss the rest of the season as a player.
- July 26, 1948 – The Phillies hire Eddie Sawyer to be their manager, replacing interim skipper Dusty Cooke.
- July 26, 1960 – Phils score in the sixth inning at Chicago, snapping a 38-inning scoreless streak. They scored on a Tony Gonzalez double and a Johnny Callison RBI single.
- July 26, 1987 – Milt Thompson, Von Hayes, and Mike Schmidt hit back-to-back-to-back home runs against Atlanta in a 7-3 win.
- July 26, 1988 – Mike Schmidt plays his 2,155th game at third base, setting a new NL record.
- July 26, 2018 – Phillies hitters tie a team record with seven home runs in a 9-4 win at Cincinnati. Rhys Hoskins, Maikel Franco, and Nick Williams each hit two.
ICYMI
- Philly Baseball News – Brian Keller Has a Solid Debut, but Phillies Offense Sputters Again
Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for July 26
- Jack Fox (born 1880) – Played for the Philadelphia A’s in 1908, his only MLB season.
- Jimmy Bloodworth (born 1917) – A first baseman and second baseman, Bloodworth played for the 1950 and 1951 Phillies.
- Jackie May (born 1925) – Spent his entire career (1948-1953) with the Phillies, hitting .213/.292/.275.
- Marty Bystrom (born 1958) – Pitched four-plus seasons for the Phillies before being dealt to the Yankees in 1984 for reliever Shane Rawley.
- Joaquin Benoit (born 1977) – Made 55 relief appearances for the Phillies in 2017 before being traded to Pittsburgh for Seth McGarry.
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